Flowers of Spring
by foggraven
Summary: Kuchinashi 梔子 Secret love. Touka and Yoriko snippets.


**An: A little something I've been working on and off on for a while. Out all of the ghoul human relationships Touka and Yoriko's was always my favourite.**

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The life of a ghoul is always a precarious balancing act. It's like walking on a tightrope, and always trying to hide it.

And if you try to mix humans in it's worse. It's like walking a tightrope, playing with eggs that can't be allowed to crack.

One only had to look at the number of half ghouls to know the chances of a relationship with a human working out. Not the most perfect of exemplars, but it tells Touka all she needs to know; humans and ghouls aren't meant to mix.

All there is in this world for a ghoul is to eat and despair, futilely clawing and railing at the world. That is the bitter truth of the world, and something in Touka rails against it, desperate to fight the odds; she's always been a fighter.

This world is wrong, and she hates it.

..

Touka Kirishima knew the dangers of getting involved with a human. She could be caught, and the two would be sentenced to death. She could eat her mate in a desperate time of hunger. Other ghouls could use her human girlfriend as a bargaining chip. Or still other horrors could befall them.

In short there were many risks. But for Yoriko Kosaka Touka would run them all.

Yoriko whose smile makes her heart beat as if it's going to fly from her chest, Yoriko whose food she eats even though it's poison to her, slowly rotting at her insides until she's sick. Yoriko whose laugh she cherishes.

Is it any wonder that one day as she watches Yoriko smile and chatter she finds herself falling in love with the girl sitting across from her without even noticing.

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They start off as tentative acquaintances, Touka is cold and standoffish, something which doesn't lend itself to making friends, the early days spent studying at a new school upon her entrance to a senior high school are no exception.

It's probably for the better, after all how could she ever really be friends with any of them. Offering false connection with another is a sin that weighs heavy.

When she befriends Yoriko the guilt eats at her. How desperately she wants to reciprocate it.

Every word she speaks feels like a betrayal.

..

One day Touka would like to hold her close and walk in the sunlight, to never have to be afraid of other ghouls or the CCG.

To share her secret without fear of judgment.

Same sex relations in Japan are already heavily frowned upon; forgivable, as long as it's kept discrete, others content to maintain the polite fiction, _–_ a ghoul human relationship though, inexcusable.

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The false closeness she offers others...

Every word from her mouth falls like poison from her lips, every lie a barbed tipped arrow of guilt and shame upon her heart.

How could she..?

As she watches Yoriko, this human girl who without even trying snatches Touka's heart, she feels her insides squirming and looks away, face red.

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Touka Kirishima loves Yoriko Kosaka.

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She doesn't know when it happens –them getting together.

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At school the forbidden relationship is an open secret, at least half of it.

Love between women is almost as frowned upon as love between a human and ghoul, but it's better amongst the young; if only everyone was as accepting as most of Touka's schoolmates.

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The first time Yoriko kisses her they're sitting across from one another in Touka's tiny living room above Anteiku. They're supposed to be studying –whatever her faults and harsh exterior Touka has always cherished the chance given to her to go to school, and Yoriko though she sometimes struggles is a good student.

Across from her the scratching of mechanical pencil on paper stops and Touka tries valiantly not to blush bashfully in a way that's embarrassingly against her normal character, keeping her eyes lowered, focussing on her work as she Feels Yoriko's soft gaze upon her.

Yoriko is the only one who can get these sorts of reactions out of her, and she'd die before she let anyone else see her acting in such a manner.

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They're sitting across from one another in Touka's tiny apartment above Anteiku when –suddenly, Yoriko leans in to plant a soft kiss on Touka's cheek, and her pale face flames a brilliant crimson.

She let's out a quite giggle, and Touka's face flames even brighter.

"You're so cute, Touka-chan." Yoriko says as she pinches the cheek she kissed.

..

For many it would be a hard to swallow fact.

Love between a human and a ghoul.

It is worth it?

That bastard Nishi would scoff and say yes.

..

Yoriko laughs. Not a day goes by when she doesn't hear it but Touka's still not used to it, she's not sure if she ever will be.

Soft touches and gentle kisses, and promises of love, shared between lovers, these are the things Touka cherishes.

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End file.
